Episode 5309: Live Coverage Of President Trump Speaking At Turning Point USA Continued
President Trump addresses a Turning Point USA crowd, claiming his term built the greatest Navy and Space Force while ending eight wars, including an Iran conflict promising nuclear removal via excavators. He cites a zero illegal border crossing rate in 11 months, violent crime dropping to 1900 levels, and a 59% fentanyl reduction alongside record tax refunds averaging $4,000. Domestically, he announces bans on transgender sports participation, the end of critical race theory, and the removal of 300,000 bureaucrats to slash the trade deficit by 59%. The speech urges midterm Republican victories to prevent a "third world nation" status, while hosts note strong Boomer support for domestic law-and-order platforms and upcoming college tours aiding Vivek Ramaswamy's Arizona gubernatorial race. Ultimately, the episode frames these achievements as essential nation-building efforts to restore America's Christian backbone before potential electoral defeat. [Automatically generated summary]
That the Strait of Hormuz is fully open and ready for business and full passage.
But the naval blockade with the greatest Navy in the world, from the greatest military the world has ever seen, we built it during my first term.
We built it.
They said I was crazy.
We weren't so crazy, were we?
We'll remain in full force and effect as it pertains to Iran until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete and fully signed.
And this process, we're getting along well, but who knows?
Who knows with anyone, but who knows with Iran in particular?
This process should go very quickly, and that most of the points are already negotiated and agreed to.
You'll be very happy.
The USA will get all nuclear dust.
You know what the nuclear dust is?
That was that white, powdery substance created by our B-2 bombers, those great B-2 bombers, late one evening, seven months ago.
No money will exchange hands in any way, shape, or form.
Iran will be.
And you know how we're going to get the dust, right?
Iran.
We were going to take it anyway.
But taking it that way is slightly more dangerous.
But we were going to get it anyway.
But Iran, with the help of the USA, has removed or is removing all of the sea mines.
And most importantly, it never agreed, and you'll understand, they will never have a nuclear weapon.
They will never have a nuclear weapon.
And somebody said, How are we going to get the nuclear dust?
We're going to get it by going in with Iran with lots of excavators because the B2s.
Remember when fake news CNN said, Well, maybe obliteration is too strong a word.
Obliteration.
That's so deep.
We need the biggest excavators you can imagine.
But we're going to go in together with Iran.
We're going to get it and we're going to take it back home to the USA very soon.
And now that the Hormuz Strait situation is almost over.
I received a call from NATO asking if we would like some help.
Thank you very much, NATO.
And I told them I would have liked your help two months ago, but now I really don't want your help anymore.
Because they were absolutely useless when we needed them.
But actually, we never needed them.
They needed us.
They need us.
They need us so badly.
You know, it's a little bit like if you're a politician, it's hard to believe I'm a politician, but after I won, people came up to me, sir, I'd like to make a major contribution to your campaign.
And I said, listen, just so you understand, campaign contributions after I won don't count.
We spend, I would say, in many cases, close to a trillion dollars over a couple of years, a trillion dollars to help them.
And we're always helping them.
And this was just a military excursion.
This isn't the big time.
You know, we built a military so great.
I'm so proud of it, including Space Force.
You know, you see all of that.
When you see those rockets go one, look up there.
The Space Force we all created, Space Force didn't exist.
We were losing to China and to Russia in space, and now we're so far ahead of them both, you wouldn't believe it.
But yesterday, on top of it all, we achieved what everyone said was impossible an unprecedented ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, and that hasn't taken place in 78 years.
We've sort of forgotten them, and they're good people who have lived like hell for a long period of time.
And hopefully, the situation with Hezbollah will get straightened out quickly.
But I want to thank the country of Pakistan and its great prime minister and its great, great field marshal.
He's our great field marshal.
Two fantastic people for helping.
They really are terrific people.
And I also want to thank Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait.
They've been amazing.
They've all helped tremendously, tremendously.
And it took courage for them.
Not easy, not easy.
They were living with what they call the bully of the Middle East.
They had the bully.
Iran was the bully of the Middle East.
They're not the bully anymore.
With the help of everyone here today, this has been by far the most successful first year of any administration in the history of our country, acknowledged by everybody.
To begin with, I ended eight wars.
And it may be a little early to say this, but if we add Iran and Lebanon, that will be ten wars ended.
Many, many millions of lives saved.
Think of how many lives we've saved.
Starting on day one, we ended the illegal invasion of America.
That's an invasion by criminals.
Many, many criminals, murderers, drug dealers, prisoners.
They emptied out their prisons into our country.
And we took the most dangerous, unsafe, violent, and open border and created the most secure border.
In U.S. history, one of the most secure borders anywhere in the world, with zero illegal aliens coming into our country in the past 11 months.
Zero!
And in 2025, we achieved the largest drop in violent crime ever recorded.
That's despite all of these people that came into our country.
Many of them are now gone, I'm pleased to tell you.
The murder rate, isn't it a terrible thing to be talking about murder?
But you gotta say it, at least if it's good news, I guess it's good news, but the murder rate reached the lowest level.
The year 1900, before my father was born, my father was great, before he was born, the flow of deadly fentanyl pouring across our border is down by an astounding 59%.
And as you probably noticed if you watched the news, illegal drugs coming in by ocean or sea are down by 97%.
We passed the largest tax cuts in American history, the largest spending cuts in American history, the largest regulation cuts in American history, and the largest investment in border security in the history of our country.
And starting my first day in office, we banned the transgender mutilation of our children.
And we made it the official policy of the United States of America that there are only two genders male and female.
That was easy.
Could you imagine if I was up here 20 years ago or 15 years ago, probably 12 years ago, and I said, There are only two genders, male and female.
People would say, What the hell is he saying that for?
Is he crazy?
That's got to be the worst speech I've ever heard.
Why is he saying that?
Or why is he saying that we got men out of women's sports?
Can you imagine saying that 15 years ago?
15 years ago.
If you said, And we got men out of women's sports, the audience would say, What's wrong with that guy?
That's the craziest thing I've ever heard.
And we got critical race theory out of our schools.
And we abolished DEI across the entire federal government.
And we eliminated so called affirmative action in federal contracting and university admissions.
If you get great marks and have great scores, And your boards are good, everything's good.
You're getting in.
People can't go before.
We have a country now that, again, is based on merit.
That's the way we became great.
But we have to win the midterms and all of these things, it'll stay with us forever.
But if we don't win the midterms, I said it during my State of the Union speech when I interviewed and talked to some people backstage.
I said, you know, I'd like to have some of these people called out for their greatness.
And we gave out, as you know that night, the Congressional Medal of Honor to a young man who was flying a helicopter with practically his legs shot off.
And he landed in Venezuela perfectly with a lot of men on board, like 48.
And if that goes down, the Venezuela incredible attack, nobody killed, hundreds of millions of barrels of oil taken out.
The relationship with Venezuela is great.
We'll work.
It's like a great partnership.
But if that doesn't happen, we looked at the Democrats.
whose daughter was slashed from behind by a maniac.
She could hardly stand.
It was eight months ago.
She could hardly stand, crying uncontrollably.
Not one Democrat was clapping.
Then we introduced a war hero from 100 years.
He was 101 years old.
Gave him the Congressional Medal of Honor for his great heroics.
Wasn't recognized until I came along.
Not one Democrat clapped.
Not one Democrat clapped.
And now they don't want to pay our border security, and they don't want to pay our great patriots of ICE.
You know, ICE is a tough job.
You got those murders that they allowed into our country.
Think of it.
Thousands of murders came into our country.
11,888, 50% of whom killed more than one person.
These are violent criminals, and ICE is tough.
And I don't want that job, and most of you don't either.
I have a couple of friends in the front row.
And they're tough people, but they're not that tough.
They don't want that job.
And if we don't have ICE, and if we don't have our great border patrol, and if we don't have our great policemen, and all of these people, they're incredible.
They keep our country great, they keep our country safe.
And the Democrats want to defund them.
They want to defund ICE, they want ICE terminated.
And you know, whether you're liberal, conservative, it doesn't matter.
Democrat, Republican, independent, it's crazy.
And I looked at them.
As we went through about seven moments when you had to clap, and they did, and I said, These people are crazy.
They're crazy.
And you know, I don't know if you noticed, the word was passed to them from people that were watching, I guess, on television, maybe standing backstage.
They said, This guy is killing you.
Start clapping.
And the last half hour, they were clapping for everything I said.
They were clapping for everything, things they shouldn't have been clapping for.
Because they heard they were getting killed.
Just remember that night.
That night was a very telling night.
And we don't want to go back to that.
We don't want open borders where millions of people pour into our country.
We want to have safe borders.
We want people coming into our country, but they want to come in, and we have to have them come in legally.
Very simple.
So I signed a historic executive order starting the process of shutting down the Federal Department of Education and sending education back to the States.
Thank you, Linda McMahon.
Linda McMahon.
You know, education.
Move back to the States where it should be.
You don't want to have a bureaucrat from Washington who couldn't care less about your community telling you how to educate your child.
You have your local boards and your parent groups.
One thing, I know you love your children.
I'm not sure that they do.
But we've largely removed education.
We just did it.
Just move them back.
You know, we're supposed to go through a long process.
Thank you, by the way, to Linda McMahon.
She's been fantastic.
Been fantastic.
And we removed over 300,000 bureaucrats from federal payrolls.
They had sometimes 10, 11, 12 people to do one job, and they just sit there.
And you know what?
I have a lot of respect for whatever.
But you can't run a country like that.
You can't, as the expression goes, has anyone ever heard of it?
Make America great again.
You can't make America great again when you do that.
So we've done that, and many of those people are very happy because right now more people are working in the United States than at any time in the history of our country.
And many of those people that had these boring, lousy jobs where they weren't even jobs, federal government, they went out, they got jobs in the private sector because we have the most people working that we've ever had before.
and they're making more money and enjoying their job.
It's sort of an amazing phenomenon.
After decades of other countries stealing our jobs and plundering our wealth, thanks to our strong policy on tariffs, we cut our gaping trade deficit.
Now, if you do 1%, you're considered like a genius.
If you do 2% or 3%, it's unheard of.
We cut it by 59% this year, our trade gap.
It's the largest drop.
Of a trade gap.
Think of it.
It's the largest drop in history, the history of our country.
So, if you're a genius with 1% and really a super genius at 3%, what are you with 59%?
I don't know.
As part of our tax cuts, we delivered a lot of you benefited by this no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security for our great seniors.
You know, the great, big, beautiful bill is really the great, big, beautiful tax cut bill, but it was also we gave you the right to deduct your interest payments on a car loan, but only if it's made in the USA.
That's been incredible.
You never had that right before.
And this week, millions of Americans received the largest tax refunds of their lives.
The average is more than $4,000 per filer.
Think of that.
So nobody knew this was going to happen, but now they're getting their refunds back, and they're much larger.
Than I said.
In other words, I under exaggerated, which is good.
And in four long years, Sleepy Joe Biden, have you heard of him?
What a president, what a disaster.
But the whole party, it was the party, he didn't run the country.
The people surrounding the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, they ran the party.
Radical left lunatics.
But in four long years, Sleepy Joe Biden got less than $1 trillion invested in our country, much less.
And in 12 months, so think of it, four years.
Ours is 12 months, and it's actually 11 because we haven't gotten the last month.
So in 11 months versus, think of that, versus four years, they did less than a trillion.
In 11 months, we did $18 trillion of new investments coming into our country.
And that's a record for any country anywhere in the world by a lot.
And the king of Saudi Arabia told me, When I was in Saudi Arabia, they invested $2 trillion in our country.
But he looked at me and said, You know, Mr. President, a short time ago, we viewed the United States as a dead country.
We thought it was dead.
And now you have the hottest country anywhere in the world.
And he's right, the hottest country anywhere in the world.
For years before I took office, people thought that America was in decline, that our best days were in the past, and that the sun was setting on American power.
But no one thinks that anymore because we are indeed the strongest, the hottest, the best country anywhere in the world.
And you know what?
Nobody laughs at us anymore.
They were laughing.
They thought we were a laughing mess.
Under this administration, America is on the march and America is on the rise like we haven't seen maybe ever before.
We are respected again as a country and we're respected at levels that nobody thought possible, unlike past leaders.
This administration does not apologize for American power.
We are not ashamed of American might.
And we do not hesitate to defend the American people, which is what we've been doing for the last two months, because Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
It's very simple.
For years, we were ruled by fools who let every third-rate country push us around and bleed us dry on trade and everything else they could get away with.
They took advantage of us on trade, not any more than that.
But those days are over and they're gone forever.
America was not founded by weak and timid men who cowered in the face of evil or sat by as danger loomed and let our country go to hell.
We are descended from the likes of George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Generals Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur, General George Patton.
Our ancestors knew exactly what to do with America's enemies beat them and beat them good.
That's what they had to do.
That's what they had to do.
And if NATO teaches us any one thing, and I hope you all watched because they weren't there for us, if it teaches us any one thing, We have to rely on ourselves.
We can't rely on outside countries and outside sources.
So do not listen to the craven and cowardly voices who tell you America needs to think small or to shrink from our duties or potential.
Most people, they wanted to, you know, this recent situation, they wanted to do it, but they said, oh, let's not get involved.
Sometimes you have to get involved.
You have no choice but to get involved.
If you're going to remain great, sometimes you have to get involved.
Remember, I'm the peacemaker.
I'm the one that settled eight wars.
I settled a war that would have killed 30 to 50 million people, India, Pakistan.
You have to sometimes get involved.
We are the inheritors of the most incredible civilization that has ever existed, and our task is to defend it.
We have to defend it.
Past leaders used our wealth and power to make other countries rich.
And treated our military like a charity for the world while getting barely a word of thanks in return.
Nobody thanks us.
They don't say, oh, thank you so much.
They don't thank us.
They think we're stupid.
That's really what it is.
They don't thank us.
Now we're using American strength to advance American interests for American citizens and to ensure that we remain the most dominant country on the face of the earth, which we're doing at levels that nobody can believe, actually.
Every branch of our armed forces is setting.
New recruitment records, records that nobody thought would be possible because everyone wants to be a part of the greatest military the world has ever seen.
In January, our warriors flew straight into the heart of the Venezuelan capital, captured the outlawed dictator Nicolas Maduro, and brought him to face American justice, which is what he's doing right now.
And very soon this great strength will also bring about a day, 70 years in waiting.
It's called a new dawn for Cuba.
We're going to help them out with Cuba.
We have a lot of great Cuban Americans.
Not too many people in this audience, I don't think, but you go to Miami, we have people, Cuban Americans, people that were brutally treated, whose families were killed and brutalized, and now.
Watch what happens.
Under this governing philosophy, instead of locking down our energy resources and putting ourselves at the mercy of those that hate us, and they hate us, and they don't respect us, but they do now, we are unleashing our own supplies with those really beautiful words.
Perhaps you've heard them before drill, baby, drill, right?
And because of that, we now produce more oil.
Than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined, and very soon that number will more than double.
That's pretty good.
In addition, our new partner, Venezuela, Venezuela's been great, really doing a good job over there, is adding very substantially to that number.
Likewise, instead of using our wealth to throw open our borders and feed, house, clothe, and police the entire world, we're restoring the principle that America's immigration policies must serve.
The best interests of America and its great citizens.
And we'll help other countries, but we have to view it as America First.
Otherwise, we're not going to have a country left.
At this moment, Democrats have shut down the Department of Homeland Security to shield the world's most heinous and violent criminals from deportation.
They want to keep them in our country.
They have a murderer killed many people.
They want to keep him in our country.
They're fighting very hard to keep him here.
There's something, I'm telling you, there's something wrong with these people.
They want to protect deranged monsters like the illegal alien from Haiti who recently beat a mother of two to death with a hammer at a Florida gas station for all to see.
It was all on tape.
You saw it just a week ago.
Last month, a migrant criminal with 15 prior charges and four prior deportations threw an 83 year old veteran onto the subway tracks in New York City, killing him.
Instantly, as he got run over by a subway train, threw him in.
It's all on tape.
Democrats want to protect him.
They want to protect criminal aliens.
Republicans want to put them in jail or ideally deport them as long as they never come back.
And under my leadership, we ended asylum fraud.
We ended all catch and release.
We stopped third world migration.
We suspended all refugee resettlement except for persecuted South Africans.
They're being persecuted in South Africa.
In South Africa, there's a very horrible thing going on in South Africa.
It's a genocide.
It's a horrible thing.
And we made it possible for these people to come into our country.
They kill people if they're white, if you're a white person.
And I'll tell you what, I did great with the black vote, the African-American vote, and they understand this better than anybody.
South Africa, they kill white farmers.
And we said, you come into our country, and we let you come in.
You get a green card, and you get a passport.
You can stay in our country.
Terrible.
Terrible.
We can't let it go on.
We don't have to talk about it.
People don't like talking about it.
You know, New York Times wrote a story about it years ago.
That was the only story they ever wrote, because I'm sure the reporter got fired immediately.
But we've deported a record number of criminal aliens, a record.
Nobody's ever seen the numbers like this.
And for the first time in more than 50 years, we now have reverse migration, a beautiful thing, actually.
And just imagine where our country would be today if instead of spending trillions of dollars on illegal migrants who come into our country illegally and spending it on the Green News scam, one of the greatest scams in history, remember?
Climate change, global warming, all of this.
They actually had global warming.
Remember that that wasn't working because we were actually cooling as a planet.
Then they had another one and another one and another one, and they were wrong.
And then they just said climate change because climate change takes care of heat, snow, whatever you have.
But past leaders had used American wealth and power to raise our civilization to brand new heights.
This is the choice for every voter.
In the midterms, Democrats want to drag America down, destroy our country, put it into crime, poverty, and squalor.
Really, the squalor of a third world nation.
We would have been, if I didn't win this election, within a short period of time, we would have been a third world nation.
Hard to believe, isn't it, huh?
Republicans want to build America up into a nation with no rivals in human history to make your family safer and wealthier than ever before.
We're making your family safe.
We're making you safe.
So, if you want a poor and weak America, a country that's riddled with crime, death, disease, and nothing but problems, you should immediately vote Democrat.
If you want a rich and strong and a country that you're going to be proud of, America, you must go out in the midterms and vote Republican.
We need that.
And I was going to say that when a president wins, Republican or Democrat, for some reason they lose the midterms often, most of the time.
It doesn't make sense.
Even if you have a president who's doing a good job, and I think I'm doing the best job of anybody, really, I do.
When you add it all up, when you add it all up, nobody's done what we've done.
But for some reason, a president, Republican, Democrat, the party does poorly in the midterms.
It doesn't make sense.
I'm still trying to figure it out.
We'll go out, I think, probably hire a couple of psychiatrists.
By the way, with the exception of our little excursion, and wait till you see prices fall.
Did you see oil is down today and prices are down today?
But we inherited the highest prices in the history of our country.
We inherited that.
And then we worked on it.
And what a job we've done.
And we took inflation way down.
We inherited the worst. inflation in history.
And what a job.
But we had to put out that flame.
We had to put out that horrible flyer, really, that was taking place in Iran.
We had to do it.
Otherwise, you want to see a problem?
Give them a nuclear weapon.
They'd use it the first day.
You want to see a problem?
They would use it the first day.
It's not going to happen.
So we're thrilled to be joined today by many incredible Arizona leaders who will help achieve this victory, including candidates for Congress, great A lot of great athletes running.
I don't know what this is.
Jay Feely, great kicker, great athlete.
Where's Jay?
Jay Feely.
Where's Jay?
Wherever you are, Jay.
Hi, Jay.
Great athletes.
A sheriff who I've been friends with for a long time, Sheriff Mark Lamb.
We have a lot of celebrities here, but with your help, We'll continue to deliver on our mandate from the American people like no president has ever delivered before.
That's what we're doing.
We have a mandate, you know?
They said if we could win three or four of the swing states, that would be incredible.
Because it's a little harder for a Republican for some reason.
I'll tell you what the reason is they cheat.
That's actually the reason.
They cheat like hell.
Remember, I got out, I said, make it too big to rig, right?
Too big to rig.
Don't believe the polls.
The polls had us way up.
Don't believe the polls.
Too big to rig.
We made it too big to rig.
Just keep going.
No matter what you see, go out and vote.
And we made it too big to rig.
But they say if I want three or four of the swing states, that should do it.
And we want all seven, right?
All seven of the swing states.
As you remember, I recently directed the Secretary of War.
How good is Pete Higseth doing, by the way?
To begin releasing government files relating to UFOs and unexplained aerial phenomena.
And I figured this was a good crowd because I know you people, you're really into that.
I don't know if I am, but you.
So I'm pleased to report today.
I thought I'd save it for this crowd because you're a little bit out there, you know, a little bit.
That this process is well underway and we found many very interesting documents, I must say.
And the first releases will begin very, very soon, so you can go out and see if that.
phenomena is correct.
You'll figure it out.
Let me know.
Let me know.
But we've had a lot of questions.
It's something that really captivates the mind.
There's no question about it.
With your support, we will crush violent crime, impose harsh new penalties for repeat offenders.
I mean, we have people that have been taken in 28 times.
We have some 28 times, and they let them go out two days later.
Crack down on Marxist prosecutors and rogue Judges.
The judges are horrible.
End deadly sanctuary cities in our country and end no cash bail, which really started it all.
No cash bail is a disaster.
Somebody shoots somebody, they go in, they just let them out.
Then they go shoot somebody else the same day.
We will stop the radical left Democrats' rampant looting of your taxpayer dollars and we will win the war on fraud, which is being headed by our great vice president, JD Vance.
We're going to win it.
We're going to win it.
I said, JD, I want that job.
I want that job.
It's so bad.
You look at Minnesota, you look at California, you look at some of these states, it's so bad.
Maine, believe it or not, is terrible.
Maine, who would think Maine is so bad?
But we're right on their S. We're right on their S.
And we will pass the great health care plan.
We call it the great health care plan to stop all payments to big insurance companies and give the money.
What we want to do is this we want the insurance companies to be cut out.
We want our government not to pay trillions of dollars to insurance companies, but to pay that same amount of money directly to the people, directly.
And you go out and buy your own health care.
And everybody likes it.
The problem is the Democrats don't like it because they're owned by the insurance companies.
So they vote no, no.
But we're going to get it done one way or the other.
We will make most favored nation discounts on drug prices permanent law.
I got you drug reductions on prescription drugs, most favored nation.
You know what that means?
That means we pay the lowest of any nation in the world.
When I got into office, we paid the highest of any nation in the world.
I got the nations to agree because I threatened them with tariffs if they don't do it.
And I got the insurance companies, I got the drug companies to do it.
So your drug prices are going to be reduced by 60, 70, 80, and in some cases, even more than 80%.
Nobody has ever done that.
And that alone should win us the midterm, but it won't because nobody wants to write.
The fake news doesn't want to write about it.
It's unbelievable.
With the help of our Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., we will make America healthy again.
Maha.
Has anyone ever heard of Maha?
We will make America healthy again.
He's doing a great job, Bobby.
And Dr. Oz is doing a great job.
Already we eliminated petroleum-based food dyes, reformed the vaccine schedule, and introduced the real.
Food pyramid.
We're cleaning up the whole mess.
It's a mess.
And to help young people afford a house, we will permanently ban Wall Street from buying up thousands and thousands of single family homes and taking them off the plate.
And we will pass the Save America Act to protect our sacred American election.
Where all voters must show voter ID, little things like that.
All voters must show proof of citizenship.
How about that?
Who would think?
It's a 97% issue, and the Democrats are holding it back.
97%.
It's 87% with Republicans and Democrats.
So even Democrats want it.
But the politicians don't want Democrats because when you have policy as bad as they have, like men playing in women's sports, transgender for everybody, open borders where people come in totally unvetted, just walk into our country, and criminals all over the world.
Well, thankfully, Steve, he did touch on a lot of the themes that I hoped he would, including some of the ones that you brought up domestically.
So I think we should just kind of parse those out and then play them out.
I mean, I think the themes were dominance and recalibration.
Military dominance, obviously not letting Iran ever have a nuke.
Space dominance, he did talk about Space Force and what the strides we've made there.
NATO, you know, the NATO recalibration saying, you know, they wanted us, but that, you know, we don't need them.
And that lesson that's learned, we have to rely on ourselves.
I think he's hinting at what may come in terms of a big NATO recalibration.
Of course, the Middle East recalibration we talked about, he did touch on that, you know, with, with brokering peace between Israel and Lebanon, uh, ending eight wars, uh, maybe two more if we attack those on.
South American recalibration, as I mentioned, he talked about putting Maduro in his place and facing justice.
Cuban recalibration, seeing a new dawn in Cuba.
And then, Steve, to your point about a lot of the domestic recalibrations that would appease MAGA, he went down a laundry list of a lot of the things that he's done that I think make MAGA happy and proud.
Stopped illegal invasion by immigrants, largest drop in violent crime, largest tax cuts, border security, banned transmutation of kids, got critical race theory out, got DEI out, cut the trade deficit by what is like 59% or so, no tax on tips, on overtime, on social security.
ended third world migration, uh, restoring law and order.
I think we all want that.
Um, you know, and then, and then hinting towards the great health care plan, getting those most favored nations prices.
These are things to come.
Uh, a permanent ban on Wall Street from snatching up homes for single family homes so, so that houses can be affordable again for young people.
Uh, I think that was important.
And then, of course, passing the Save America Act, common sense legislation.
So in one sense, Steve, it was a, it was a retrospect of what he's done that's so well.
And in the other sense, it was also broadcast into the future.
But there's the other element that I think we have to talk about, which is kind of what Brian said, the midterm recalibration.
What does that look like?
What Andy Biggs said, that Arizona is the fulcrum of national politics.
He mentioned a lot of the people that are running in races there, which I think is amazing.
But I don't know if he said, Steve, exactly what it's going to take.
He mentioned that the conundrum of the fact that the president's party usually loses in a midterm and that that that's a psychological conundrum.
But what do we do to change that?
I think that's really the question that to me is left a bit unanswered.
Do you, in his laying out the themes of dominance and recalibration, do you think, and you know, he prides himself in being able to weave it all together.
Do you see concisely the argument that he's going to make through the 250th?
Because remember, between now and election day, obviously he believes he's bringing this war to a successful conclusion, Bo.
He also, and I think he implied, Something, you know, there, and there's a huge story today in political and other places about Cuba.
They're already having some sort of preliminary meetings or negotiations.
But we've got it from drawing down the war.
You've got the 250th celebration of the anniversary of the beginning of the nation.
And then it's a drive to election day.
Do you think you saw some of the big themes that will be the driving themes here to get people out?
Because right now, The opposition has put Trump on the ballot.
It's all Trump derangement syndrome.
As you know, we spent months down in Texas, and I can tell you the power they've got in Texas right now is Trump's on the ballot from the left.
We have to put Trump on the ballot from the right.
Do you see the themes coming out for a successful fall campaign?
I do, but I think, Steve, that what is making things so uncertain right now is the instability.
People don't like instability, markets don't like instability.
Once I think that levels out, and I think Eric Bowling said it on your show earlier, you need about 30 days for these prices to start coming back down.
It's great to see oil at $80 a barrel or wherever it dipped down in the 70s today.
But that's got to trickle down to people.
And so when we get to this summer of doom that Democrats probably hoped for, if it's no longer a summer of doom and it's a summer of energy independence and energy exports, and people are getting money in their pockets, and those tax refunds have come in and they're a little rosier than people predicted, and the gas prices are back, and you can see levels that are under $4 a gallon at your local pump, and maybe you can afford to take your family on vacation.
I think that's when middle America starts to see the relief.
I think right now it's just been a tense moment.
It feels like a tender box.
Do you know what I mean?
And so I think those themes that he's talking about will settle in.
Steve and Bowe have brought up a good word called recalibrate.
This is a recalibration of America First, recalibration of the Republican Party.
I said a recalibration of Arizona, bringing the energy from the America First policies, and you spoke of the foreign war, kind of putting a conclusion to that.
That has brought in, there's a lot of boomers in this room.
There's a lot of people 65 and over.
Very popular, no tax on TIP, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security.
Then you have the young movement for Turning Point USA.
Everyone's coming together to celebrate the Republican Party.
You know, for those who missed it, he got worked up emotional for a good minute because he kept saying that we picked Arizona because this is the place where you can live out the American dream.
I couldn't have done it without my wife, and we still believe in making this state the best state in the country.
I mean, it was phenomenal.
And I will tell you, if there's any doubt of where the base is at, the base wants Andy Biggs in the state 48.
It was, it was a really touching, and I thought he.
He reached really deep.
I think this was a pivotal, pivotal, important speech.
We will look back and realize this was the most important speech to kick things off for Andy Biggs, no doubt.
One final thought, Steve, from Brett Stevens in today's Times.
If past generations could see how well this war has gone compared to the ones they were compelled to fight at a frightening cost, they would marvel at their posterity's comparative good fortune.
They would marvel, too, at our inability to appreciate the advantages we now possess.